BI Suite: Business Explorer 

Purpose

The SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Suite, the Business Explorer (BEx), provides flexible reporting and analysis tools for strategic analyses and decision-making support within a business. These tools include query, reporting, and analysis functions. As an employee with access authorization, you can evaluate past or current data at various levels of detail and from different perspectives, not only on the Web but also in the portal and in Microsoft Excel.

The Business Explorer tools are also used to create planning applications and for planning and data entry within BI integrated planning. For more information, see BI Integrated Planning.

You can use BEx Information Broadcasting to distribute business intelligence content by e-mail, either as precalculated documents with historical data, or as links with live data. You can also publish this content in the portal (in Knowledge Management folders or collaboration rooms).

SAP NetWeaver 2004s provides you with two versions of the following tools:

■      BEx Query Designer

■      BEx Web Application Designer

■      BEx Broadcaster

■      BEx Analyzer

This documentation describes the BEx tools of SAP NetWeaver 2004s. For more information on BEx tools of the SAP BW 3.5 version, see help.sap.com/nw04 ® SAP NetWeaver ® Information Integration ® SAP Business Information Warehouse ® BI Suite: Business Explorer.

Features

The following overview shows the functional areas of the Business Explorer:

Query, Reporting, and Analysis

The data in the SAP NetWeaver BI is structured into self-contained business data areas (InfoProviders). You analyze the dataset of the BI system by defining queries for InfoProviders in the BEx Query Designer. By selecting and combining InfoObjects (characteristics and key figures) or reusable structures in a query, you determine the way in which you navigate through and evaluate the data in the selected InfoProvider.

Analyzing data on the basis of multi-dimensional data sources (OLAP reporting) makes it possible to analyze several dimensions at the same time (such as, for example, time, location, and product). You have the option of implementing any number of variance analyses (for example, plan-actual comparison, fiscal year comparison). The data, displayed in the form of a table, serves as the starting point for a detailed analysis for answering a variety of questions. A large number of interaction options, such as sorting, filtering, swapping characteristics, and local calculations allow flexible navigation through data at runtime. You can also display data in graphics (for example, bar charts or pie charts). In addition, you can evaluate geographical data (for example, characteristics such as customer, sales region, and country) on a map. Furthermore, you can use Exception Reporting to determine deviating and critical objects, broadcast messages on deviating values by e-mail, or distribute them to the universal worklist in the portal.

You can perform a detailed analysis of BI information both on the Web and in Microsoft Excel.

BEx Web

Web Application Design

Web Application Design allows you to use the generic OLAP navigation in Web applications as well as Business Intelligence Cockpits for simple or highly individual scenarios. You can use standard markup languages and the Web Design API to implement highly individual scenarios with user-defined interface elements. Web application design comprises a broad spectrum of interactive Web-based business intelligence scenarios that you can adjust to meet your requirements using standard Web technologies.

BEx Web Application Designer

You can use the BEx Web Application Designer, the desktop application used to create Web applications, to generate HTML pages that contain BI-specific content such as tables, charts, or maps. Web Applications are based on Web templates that you create and edit in the Web Application Designer. You can save the Web templates and access them from the Web browser or the portal. Once they have been executed in the Web, Web templates are known as Web applications.

BEx Web Analyzer

The BEx Web Analyzer provides you with a standalone, convenient Web application for data analysis that you can call using an URL or as an iView in the portal. In the Web Analyzer, you can open a data provider (query, query view, InfoProvider, or external data source) and use ad hoc analysis to create views of BI data, called query views, that you can then use as data providers for other BI applications. You also distribute and save the results of your ad hoc analysis as needed.

Report Designer

The Report Designer is an easy-to-use design tool that you can use to create formatted reports that are optimized for presentation and printing. Extensive formatting and layout functions are available in the Report Designer that you can use to create corporate balance sheets or HR master data sheets to suit your needs, for example.

PDF Generation

The connected PDF generation function allows you to print Web applications and reports in various formats. See Creating Print Versions of BI Applications.

BI Patterns

BI patterns are Web applications that are tailored to the requirements of particular user groups and that are used for the unification of the display of BI content.

BEx Analyzer

The BEx Analyzer is an analysis, reporting, and design tool of the Business Explorer that is integrated into Microsoft Excel. In the BEx Analyzer, you can analyze selected InfoProvider data and plan with it by navigating in queries that were created in the BEx Query Designer. You can use the context menu or Drag&Drop functions for this.

You can design the interface for your queries by inserting design items such as dropdown boxes, radio button groups, and pushbuttons into your Excel workbook. In this way, a workbook becomes a complete query application.

See Analysis & Reporting: BEx Analyzer.

BEx Information Broadcasting

BEx Information Broadcasting allows you to make objects with Business Intelligence content available to a wide spectrum of users, according to your requirements.

With the BEx Broadcaster, you can precalculate Web templates, queries, query views, reports, and workbooks and publish them in the portal, distribute them by e-mail, or print them. In addition to the precalculated documents that contain historical data, you can also generate online links to queries and Web applications.

The Business Explorer portal role illustrates the various options that are available to you when working with content from BI in the portal.

See Information Broadcasting.

Integration into the Portal

You can integrate business BI content seamlessly into the portal. Integration is carried out using the BEx Broadcaster, KM content, SAP Role Upload, or the Portal Content Studio. The objects you create and their display types in the portal depend on the type of integration. For more information, see Overview: Integration and Display Types of BI Content.

The portal enables you to access applications from other systems and sources, such as the Internet or intranet. Using one entry point, you can reach both structured and unstructured information. In addition to content from Knowledge Management, business data from data analysis is available to you from the Internet and from the intranet.

See Integrating BI Content into the Portal